Tremors of Ruin
by Silver Sky 1138
Summary: The Jedi are not the only ones challenging Darth Sidious. Meet a feminist Sith from the Old Republic and her apprentice who knows the Force only through music. Featuring appearances by Darth Maul and possibly other canon characters.
1. Chapter 1

It had been murky outside, with fog flowing slowly through the streets of Coruscant. Inside, the lights were artificially bright, while in the Force everything was darker, murkier, than it had been. Perhaps misfortune gravitated toward the small population of beings inside the cantina.

Darth Ruen walked through the crowds with her eyes lowered under her uncontrolled blonde hair. There was no impression to be made here. She wanted solitude. She wanted no one to know her, so that she could be alone with her confusion and anger and knife-sharp critiques of life without the Force. Later, perhaps, underestimation could be used to fuel her laughter, if one of the loud, pushy patrons here decided to speak to her.

With rage and frustration in her posture she sat down at a rickety table. Bluish smoke drifted through this room as an attempt at atmosphere. In front of Ruen there was a low stage and a single musician, a female human who was not dancing but rather playing the violin.

She tapped her fingernails on the table. Repressed emotion glinted in her eyes, in the ugly shade between hazel and orange. There was a computer set into the table with which she could place her order if she wanted to, but she had not come for drinks or the food she had no credits for. She had come to be lonely in a crowd.

The lively violin melody ended and segued into slow, abiding notes, a mournful sound entirely inappropriate to the setting. The feeling of the Force in the room slowly dwindled, as did Ruen's emotions, down to quiet and soft pain, to hopelessness. Ruen felt her head sink. Hidden by the hair fallen to either side of her face she grimaced, showing her teeth—

The Force, the emotion, and the emotion-generating music were linked.

Ruen's head came up quickly, but she resisted fixing her gaze on the musician or scanning the other patrons because that would be too much intensity, too much disturbance in the mien of the place. She did not want to cause a scene until she really _wanted _too—instead she smoothly stood and moved to a table closer to the musician's stand.

The people around her were feeling the effects of something like a drug. They bent together or cradled their drinks in their hands. They sighed. Ruen looked into the eyes of the violinist. The girl was staring out over the heads of the crowd, intently studying something that no one else could see.

Out of the back of the stage behind her emerged a being whose strange black fur seemed to extend the shadows around it; its high, pointed ears and narrow, yellow eyes increased its resemblance to a clever demon-animal. Ruen recognized it as in fact a Defel, probably a co-owner of the cantina who meant to keep the violinist in the right musical genre for the setting. He did not mean to be creepy, but he distinctly was as he loomed over the musician and placed a furry hand on her shoulder.

"Asha," he said. Ruen could not be sure from his tone whether the word was the violinist's name or a Defelian curse. The girl, shaken suddenly from her trance, shrank away from his hand, an expression of fear written over her face.

"Play something _good_," the barkeep growled. The girl blinked as if clearing her head, but her hands gravitated to the strings and continued the melody she had been playing. She played like Ruen fought—with the Force a step ahead of her every moment, feeling out the possibilities, playing on her emotions. Those emotions, of a shocked kind of calm, extended to the listeners whether they were psychically receptive or not.

Ruen bet that the Jedi had disowned or did not know about a power as unusual and uncontrolled as this.

Before the Defel could make an angry movement, Ruen quietly spoke up from just in front of the stage. She locked eyes with the barkeep. "It looks like she's had too much. Let me talk to her for a moment. No matter that you're paying for music."

"No matter," repeated the Defel.

It was never easy to mindtrick an alien, but the woman and the girl departed the stage for a distant corner, the violin still comfortably held in the girl's hands.

It was easier to make out her features now. The girl had dark skin and even darker hair and eyes. Her face shape was round, but she was far too skinny to appear homely because of it. And she was far too young to have been in the bar for anything other than music, maybe fifteen or so.

"Are you aware of what you're doing out there?" Though she wasn't much taller than the girl, Ruen stared down at her, trying to appear intimidating enough to get an honest answer.

The girl answered meekly. "Not really. I just play. It's easier."

Ruen snorted. "I'm sure. But do you know what you're _doing_?"

All this earned her was a confused expression. She began to wonder if the girl were slow.

"Are you aware," she said, more slowly this time, "of how much you're influencing those people?"

"Oh, that." Ruen rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Sometimes I can make them give me more money."

"How wonderful." Ruen cast a glance over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening. "Can you make them do anything else?"

"Never tried."

Ruen leaned forward. She glared slightly from the intensity of her thoughts. If this girl were untapped and Force-sensitive, her plans had just taken a giant leap forward. If this girl were frightened of power, she was not worth it. "Can you try now?"

"I guess." She seemed hesitant. "What do you want me to do?"

Ruen sat back and folded her arms. "Play something…with emotion in it. Play something sad." _Like she was before. I wonder why._

"Okay." She started to set the violin into playing position, and then seemed to change her mind halfway through her action. Instead, she laid it down gently on the table, and pulled a double-flute from a pocket of her oversized shirt. She glanced once more at Ruen, as though asking for permission to continue, before putting her lips against the instrument and beginning. The first note was low and haunting; she lifted a finger, then another, in patterns that created eerie half-tones and dissonance. All through the song, her eyes never left Ruen's.

It took Ruen a moment to do what she had originally intended. For a moment she was transfixed, remembering the sadnesses of her short, turbulent life, images parading through her mind. The Jedi Council chamber, so sparse and perfect compared to lava-colored Sith eyes, so tired and dull. A tear almost tracked down her cheeks, but she was not used to this— more emotion than music alone could explain. She summoned the Force in anger and chased it up the notes to the girl's mind, feeling as she had been taught the echoes bouncing back. The girl was Force-sensitive, but in a way Ruen had never felt before. Her talent linked to the music, did not stray out of its arena, transitioned back to it so that Ruen was almost taken by emotion again. She could tell, this time, that it was not hers.

As her eyes widened, shaded, Ruen pushed the music into the part of the girl's mind that in normal Jedi registered the Force. Her eyes widened as she seemed to understand. Ruen found it slightly strange, watching the expression change so dramatically while the lower part of her face remained perfectly set around the instrument.

Then, finally, the last note faded away. The girl shut her eyes and took a few deep breaths before meeting Ruen's gaze again. "Oh," she murmured after a moment.

Ruen, not yet used to one-word answers containing so much, took a silent moment for herself to decide what to say next. She had never had to recruit, and always imagined it as a bit melodramatic. _Join me, on the dark side…_who speaks like that?

"You can manipulate people with this power. Has anyone ever taught you about the Force? It's the energy that sets you and I apart from the rest of this rabble." _Yet I'm the one camping out in an abandoned apartment. _"Where are you living now? I have a place where we could go, stay safe, both study the Force." She felt that she was babbling a bit now to make up for the monosyllabic girl. It had been a while since she had hated people looking at her as they waited for a crack in the mask of confidence. The musician's eyes unnerved her a little.

The girl stared long and hard. Then: "Asha."

"What?"

"My name is Asha. If you're going to teach me, shouldn't you at least know my name?"

"Yes. I was going to ask you, actually." She refrained from saying _but thought that the mystic Force was more important. _She got some more silence, then thought of saying, "My name is…Ruen."

"What a strange name."

Ruen was beginning to doubt her decision. Could she possibly connect with this girl—with Asha? She did, however, have a reply she thought suitably witty. "I've known stranger." She tried to keep her thoughts in control, thought surely her eyes deepened, perhaps softened as they lost focus. Through her, the Force lifted the flute from Asha's hands. With just enough pressure to keep it aloft and secure, Ruen spun the instrument in the air In front of the girl's face. "I've also known power, skills that you could have."

Asha watched the floating instrument. "When do we start?"

"Right now." The flute fell suddenly, and Asha reached a hand out reflexively to catch it. "Come on, we're leaving." And with a probably-too-dramatic swish of her cloak, Ruen swept out of the cantina, casting only one glance over her shoulder to see if her young apprentice was following.

----------(---


	2. Chapter 2

----------(---

Ruen said roughly, "The best thing about this place is the amount of locks. I have the keys, which I found under this statue of a baby Ewok. Obviously the previous owner had no taste." They stood on a metal balcony as Ruen opened the door. The shoddy apartment sat about halfway down a one-thousand story building. Like a lot of Coruscant's lower streets, the lighting and the pavement on the walkways outside were intermittent. A tightly tacked-on metal roof protected this outcropping which was the woman's destination. She pushed the plastic keys into a succession of inset readers; then the door moved aside.

The apartment was sparsely furnished: a small table that sat low to the ground, and leaned slightly to the left; a single bed; a dirty hanging over the window. Items, clothes, and makeup were scattered over every available surface. A chipped cup sat on the floor in a corner, containing what appeared to be a half-finished cup of tea.

Asha, however, saw none of this, because she was too busy staring at the ceiling. Ruen raised an eyebrow.

"Are you looking at anything in particular?"

" Nope. But I haven't had a roof for… a long time."

"Oh….ah…" Ruen removed her cloak and turned to drape it over a bedpost. The apartment was dingy, small, but clean, with a black rug over the fake-stone floor. She flicked a glance at Asha as if to make sure she were still there. "Where are you from, then?"

Asha had a vague suspicion that her answer was supposed to contain more than just a town name. "Corellia, originally. I think. My family's still there. If they haven't moved, then they live in an alleyway between a spaceport and a private apartment, about as far down as you can go."

She finally stepped over the threshold and shut the door behind her. Her eyes lingered on each item in turn as she continued. "We used to go down to Treasure Row, and I'd sing, but no one there has any money to give you anyway. So I guess if you wanted to pin an exact place on it, you could say I was from there."

"I've heard of it." Ruen moved to sit cross-legged on the floor near the skewed table. "In all that time, you've never known about your Force powers? I can look at this table, will it to move, focus with a gesture—and it moves." The table lurched. "This is natural to me. And you?"

"All I know is music."

This wasn't entirely true. Asha had known for some time that she could affect people's emotions. She'd just never been sure how it was she'd always done so. Until a passer-by had heard her music, and walked away muttering about Jedi magic.

"Not that it's ever done _us_ any good," her mother had said. "Guardians of peace and truth. Hah! Magic users, flaunting those – those unnatural powers. Never helped anybody."

Still, Asha had figured that if anyone could explain her talents to her, a Jedi could. So, with a bit of planning and a lot of luck, she'd made her way to Coruscant, and the Temple, only to be turned away. And from there, she'd found herself back in the city slums, living day to day in increasingly sketchy establishments. Which was why, limited as this apartment was, it was ideal compared to what her situation would have otherwise been.

She joined Ruen on the floor. "Can you teach me how to move things?"

"I think," said the older human. "You have to _sense_ the object before you can move it. Close your eyes. Try to see with a sixth sense. Think of the galaxy as a spider web; you pull on its strings to know what is wrapped in it at other parts."

Asha did as she was told, but saw nothing. No galaxies, no spider webs, not even strings like those on her violin. But the more she focused on looking for these things, she suddenly realized she could _hear_ them.

Everything around her had its own song. The table hummed something low and deep. The walls resonated with age. And there was a distinct melody coming from the direction where Ruen sat. Asha focused, sank into that song, and picked it apart. The bass line was a low, steady beat of life and determination. Above that, a counterpoint of pain and loss, the notes twisting in and around themselves. And a clear, bright soprano that sang of strength, of passion. Asha reached for that, gripped it, and opened her eyes.

Ruen gasped slightly. "You are aware. But I do not…we see things differently, I think."

Asha nodded. "I didn't see anything, really. But I think you'd make a good song."

Ruen smiled.

---(----------

Ruen got up from the floor and looked out the window past the grimy curtain. Asha's unexpected words pleased her. She was not used to compliments—so she soaked them up like catci and water. She had to smile now. To gain an apprentice, a fellow female, someone powerfully Force-sensitive in a way the Jedi may not even recognize but which could work magic of its own—she could begin to undermine Darth Sidious now. She could begin to fulfill all her ambitions and revenges.

She imagined herself of five years ago, viewing herself of now. That past person would be amazed with the wild life Ruen lived—subsisting without credits, without friends, with 'contacts' instead. The pre-Ruen girl would be happy.

She had resented the Jedi Temple indeed. Her elderly human Master accepted her mediocrity and could not teach her about emotions. Neither he nor the council members understood her complicated moods, and the more they told her that her emotions were the result of hormones, that "it's because you're a teenage girl" as someone had said, the more she thought they rued her. She thought: Did anyone ever notice that most of the Jedi Council was male? Were females just too emotional for nonattachment and 'Jedi calm'? Ruen horded her emotions, and when they were let out they came hard and strong.

"What does nonattachment mean?" She asked, not listening to the answer, replacing it with the one she thought would heal her little hurts; "Not having emotion."

And that was impossible.

She had deserted the temple. On the first day out on her own, when she discovered exactly how much she had always depended on credit vouchers in her pocket and clean public restrooms down the hall, she had hunkered on a windowsill in the shade of the city and wondered whether even now they were sculpting her face to add to the line of Lost Twenty.

Probably not. She, Jedi Padawan Kate Misinjian, was not that important. The jagged lines of black and green makeup on her tan face would be too much work to replicate. Would they change them each day to be accurate? Ruen had seen the artistic designs in a history text and used them to make herself look impressive and unique. Her master saw them as acts of rebellion.

After a few weeks her disparate thoughts were tamed and focused into what she had always been taught to distrust; hatred for the Jedi. She changed her name. She sought out the Sith, first knowing only rumors of a Dark Lord which had clouded the Force for a few years now. Eye-opening discussion with whomever she could find in the underworld and working class of Coruscant led her to The Works and a person who owned the electricity in a certain building which legally had no renters. Then the trail grew cold for a time, until Sidious' apprentice, the final step, had met with Ruen only to tell her that the Dark Lord would not even expend the energy to kill her.

Darth Ruen turned from the window and surveyed her domain; she gently lifted the used cup with the Force and set it near the door to the closet, which had been turned into a kitchen by setting a ceramic bowl of water on the floor.

She smiled, hoping it was not a scary smile.

"How can attachment mean emotion?"

If Ruen had not been so trained in self-control, she probably would have jumped, or at least lost her balance. "Make some vaping noise next time you come up behind me!"

If Asha heard her, she gave no outward signs. "What's that supposed to mean, nonattachment? Either you're attached to something," she illustrated by seizing her left forearm with her right, then letting go, "or you're not."

"I don't mean physically _attached_," Ruen said softly. "It means emotions…you're loyal to someone because of friendship, love, honor or whatever. You don't want to be without its object."

"Ah." Asha tilted her head to the side a bit as she contemplated Ruen. "So if you're going to teach me, then we're going to become… attached." She drew out the last word, as though testing the difference between its literal and abstract meanings.

"Yeah." At first it felt like an easy response. The dark side had no problem with attachment, and the whole point of speaking to Asha was to get an apprentice. As Ruen thought about it she caught the nuances under Asha's speech. Sarcasm? Mockery? Suspicion? "But I don't always understand what you mean. Could you speak clearer?" It was hard to read Asha's intent in the Force also. It was almost like reading an alien. "Actually, let's make this your first official lesson."

"Can't change my accent," Asha replied. "I learned that much as soon as I came to Coruscant."

"I'm not talking about accents, although we'll certainly work on your diction too--" she held up a hand to stop Asha, who had opened her mouth with the idea of asking what, exactly, diction was, "—If I'm going to teach you, we have to understand each other. And that means not speaking so vaguely all the time."

Asha seemed to consider this. Then she asked, quite plainly, "Does that mean you too?"

Ruen pursed her lips before answering truthfully. "It does."

"All right." Asha leaned against the wall next to Ruen. "Tell me what I can do then."

"You can begin by--"

She was cut off by a loud and rather impatient sounding knock on the door. Both Asha and Ruen turned to look, though Asha looked far more frightened than Ruen did.

"Were you expecting someone?" she asked, after a moment.

Whatever was on the other side gave the door another pounding.

"Not exactly," Ruen replied. _Or at least, not this soon._


	3. Chapter 3

III

Ruen opened the door. On the other side stood a male Feeorin, a bulky humanoid with blue head-tails and no nose. She did not take in his species first, however. She recognized his face, and then the clothes he wore.

"Nlak." She said.

Her old friend, the Jedi Knight Nlak, stammered, "Kate?"

He got no response.

"You're…Ruen?"

"And what are you, coming after me at this hour? Come to _redeem _me, have you?"

Nlak straightened up. "I am a Jedi Shadow."

"Ah yes…" Ruen pretended to think about the title, to dredge up from her memory banks its meaning. "Your job is to secretly find dark Jedi organizations. Does this look like an organization to you?" Mockingly Ruen stepped aside as if to show the Feeorin her house and the one small person standing inside.

"The word _organization _isn't the important part," began Nlak. "The important one is _dark—"_

Ruen's lightsaber snapped to life in her hand. She knew this man. He as a child had almost been her friend in the Temple—and now he would eradicate her. She mustn't let him speak. Mustn't let that hurt come through.

Nlak spoke quickly. "Still green. I've come to help you, Kate, if I—"

Ruen lunged forward. The Jedi dodged, into the house, and ignited his own orange blade. She attacked again and he parried; her weapon slid against his with a signature crackle. He started to speak again; she stabbed. He parried across his body again. She flipped her saber and cut for his head. He jumped backwards. She took two long steps with her blade angled over her shoulder, feinted a roundhouse kick, and when his left hand came down to parry, she slashed upward with her lightsaber.

Nlak cried out, but he flicked his blade down and scored a shallow burn on her shoulder before she ducked and moved back as well. He advanced; they circled in the middle of the sparse apartment.

Asha sat straight-backed in one of Ruen's chairs. She'd been silent throughout the exchange, having very little idea of what was going on. In fact, she was still busy puzzling out what was meant by "the dark side" when Ruen finally started calling for her attention.

"You could help me, you know," she said over her shoulder, as she executed a flashy but effective block.

"What do you want _me_ to do?" Asha countered. "I don't have one of those glowy-swords. And besides, those colors are making my eyes hurt."

For a few more moves Ruen's attention was not on Asha at all. Then Nlak took one of his hands off his lightsaber's hilt and raised it. Ruen was tossed through the air. Elegantly she twisted as she flew and landed on her hands and feet near Asha. "Music!" She hissed, before getting up again and charging toward her foe. She stepped aside as he angled his blade to respond, and cut low for his stomach. He blocked with the very tip of his lightsaber.

Asha could think of many clever things she could do with her music in this instance. Make the Jedi depressed, perhaps, or tired, or…she could even make him fall in love, if he were not too far from it in the first place. But she was used to playing for small crowds, not for people dueling to the death! She feared having her hands full while those glowing swords were being whipped about, and she certainly didn't want her instruments anywhere near them.

The fight had captivated her full attention. She had never seen anything quite like it… Sure, she'd seen her share of street fights – had even been involved in a few – but this was something entirely different. This had rules, albeit unspoken ones. She couldn't picture this strange alien reaching out to pull Ruen's hair, or cutting toward specifically weak parts of the body—"

"Asha!!"

"Right!" She scrambled up from her chair and pulled her bag toward her. The double-flute was the first thing she grabbed, and she brought the instrument to her lips, breathed in, and began. Much as it pained her ears, she played purposefully dissonant notes, and tried to project an aura of general confusion at Nlak.

He staggered at a pivotal moment. His feet came out from under him as he pushed against a chair; as he fell, Ruen twisted her blade up under his and sliced the lightsaber hilt apart. The Jedi cowered against the wall. He raised his hands in front of him, but looked at them as if they were not his own.

The dissonant music twirled through the room like lightning and rain.

Ruen put her the tip of her lightsaber blade so close to Nlak that he tipped his head up to avoid it touching his chin. She too looked confused by the Force music, and showed it even more than the Jedi did; she silently snarled, teeth baring for seconds at a time, and her narrowed eyes burned yellow. But she did not move to further the attack.

Asha put the flute down and stared at the scene in front of her, head tilted slightly to the side. "Are you going to kill him?" she asked plainly.

Ruen paused, as if she wanted to think for a long time about the question and analyze what her answer would or should be, but a look at the Jedi regaining his wits in her living room told her that would not be a good idea. She had too many complicated reasons for why she would kill him. Hers was not a darkness of rage. "No." Instead she hauled him to his feet with one hand, the other shakily holding the lightsaber to him. She shoved him toward the door. "Get _out _of here. Tell the Order that I'm gone from them. I hate them. But I'm fighting the darkness too. Vape you, Nlak."

The door slammed open and she pushed the Jedi onto the balcony. She spoke close to his ear. "But I spared you." Then she pushed him out so that he had to steady himself not to fall off the balcony, and shut the door in front of her.

She stood there breathing hard and using all her senses for a while, to make sure that he was gone.

"So," Asha said as Ruen finally turned around again. "tell me about these 'sides.'"

Ruen turned around. Her face clearly said _I just almost killed a Jedi in front of you and all you have to ask about is 'sides'?_

Asha continued to gaze at the older girl. Her face clearly said, _everything else was pretty self-explanatory. _

Ruen spoke monotonously as she walked back to the table. Her eyes were golden now, strands of red twining out from the iris like solar flares. "The dark side and the light side. One good, one evil, so they say."

"Isn't good and evil a point of view?"

"Exactly. What it's really is about is emotions. Personal Force power is fueled by what you feel. Loyalty and protectiveness and a sense of justice, all very impersonal things when you're talking about the Republic or a moral code set down by who-knows-who or what, produce powers considered light side. Rage, revenge, love…those fuel the dark side."

"Love fuels the dark side…" Asha repeated this very slowly, as if testing out the idea. _And Ruen uses the Dark side…_ "Who did you love?"

That was not the question Ruen had been expecting, and it showed on her face. "I—" She shook her head. She had never been very good at Jedi calm, but wasn't going to exclaim something like the teenager she had once been! At the same time as she valued emotions, she hid them. "Maybe you'll learn that someday." _Forget it. _

Ruen walked around the apartment, retrieving a sealed cup of noodles, pulling the tab to cause the food to self-heat, and placing it steaming in front of Asha. "Here,"

Ruen went to the window, stared at the rough curtain and the canyon of skyscrapers. She had never been in love, at first. Not with him. But then her pent-up emotions converged on the target she knew best—and the antithesis of the Jedi.

Soon after she left the order it became her mission to find out about the mysterious Sith the Council spoke of, who did indeed clot the light Force like dried blood in the heart. She threatened her way through shady businesspeople, not sure how else to deal with them except from the high ground and the shadows, and found out that there were more than squatters in the Works, the abandoned factories surprisingly close to the Republic's heart. There was someone importing expensive materials there. Materials essential to physical training, to security, and to researching ancient Sith artifacts.

Ruen kept her lightsaber on her hip in plain sight and trekked through the Works. There was absolutely no Force presence to follow, but she had tips and the occasional password to help her. She ended up in a high-level courtyard paved with cracked stone, plants curling up from between the flagstones, an intelligent Force-presence waiting behind a door.

She did not at first recognize the species of the person who opened the door; he was a lean Zabrak, his face made even odder by jagged black tattoos and wide, sunburst eyes. Ruen stepped back, into the center of the courtyard. She could sense that this was not the Master, not the epitome of darkness the Council feared—but the apprentice. She got no more than the sense of deep evil from him.

She breathed in deeply and did not stammer. "I've come to speak to the dark lord," she said. "I've turned from the Jedi, and wish to join him."

"He needs no other apprentice."

"Really? Have you seen the Jedi Temple? There are more of them than there are of you, I'm sure of it. And I know that place. I'll perform whatever treachery is wished of me."

"He needs no other apprentice."

She sensed a brief communication through the Force and attempted to infiltrate it, but it was almost as if they were using a different sort of power than her—she gained no knowledge.

The Zabrak strode forward angrily. He activated a red-glowing lightsaber and swung it in front of her, almost as if pointing the out the way to leave.

She activated her own green blade. The light almost blinded her as he struck and she parried once, twice, but she did not need sight alone—He moved aside with some convoluted acrobatic jump and, faster than she could register, burnt a line of pain along her leg. She stumbled back, saber still up guarding her, and gracefully avoided knocking her head into the wall when she was Force-pushed across the courtyard and ended up lying in a heap some distance from the Sith.

She recovered and began to circle, limping, but knew than that she did not want to incite him. The warning was over.

"My master tells me that you are not worth killing," said the apprentice.

Ruen waited for some continuation of that thought, never got anything but an extremely unsettling stare, and ran off to scream.

Sometime later the apprentice's stare started haunting her mind at the oddest times, and with the oddest connotations.

In her apartment, Ruen shook her head again. "Love is not the greatest tool of the dark side," she said, turning back to Asha. "Hate is, or revenge. If you hate the Jedi, they automatically consider you an enemy of their side—and I hate the Jedi.

"Are you paying attention?"

Asha looked up; she'd hesitated over the food at first, but she'd eaten stranger things. And she'd assumed that if Ruen had left the room she wasn't supposed to be listening anymore. So she'd turned her attention to the self-heating-noodles, which had turned out to be surprisingly good, if a bit salty for her tastes. "I'm sorry. Was I supposed to be?"

Ruen glared.

"Right, sorry." She finished the last of whatever-it-was that Ruen had given her. "So, you hate the Jedi. Is that why one of them just came here trying to convert you?"

"That's what they do. They call it redemption….But I'm as set in my ways as any of them. He's going to go back and tell them where we are. We better move. I've certainly not trained you enough, but…I know just the place to go."


	4. Chapter 4

IV

"At least it's still got a roof," said Asha

Ruen glanced with disdain around at the small room. Its sloped ceiling and trap door made it look like an attic; however, its original identity had been as a café servicing factory workers before or after their shifts. It retained a curved countertop and some damaged chairs. As with most of the Works, it was sealed well against dust and life forms—excepting those who had the Force and lock-picking skills—and was absent from the mind of whoever had once officially owned it.

Ruen had moved everything that she or Asha owned to this location a few days beforehand. She considered it lucky that they did not have a lot to move to begin with. No one would know that they had changed locations. And if the new place were uncomfortably close to the supposed nexus of the Sith…all the better.

"Now we get to build you a lightsaber," said Ruen, finally settling down on a box.

"A what?"

Ruen replied, exasperated, "A glowy sword."

"Oh, right."

Ruen placed Nlak's halved lightsaber on the countertop. "Are you any good with mechanical things?"

"No."

"Okay, that's fine. I'll take care of the wiring. You need to keep your fingers away from what I'm doing and work on using the Force." Carefully she extracted two crystal shards from the lightsaber, one from each half. "While we're on the subject, have you ever used a vibroblade?"

"No."

"Okay. You'll just provide the soundtrack for any battles we get in for the next week or so…here." She dropped the shards into Asha's cupped hands.

"I can do that!" said Asha excitedly.

"I was being sarcastic."

"Oh."

"A crystal matrix is a simple physical structure to manipulate with the Force. It's tiny, but repetitive. It doesn't move while you're trying to work on it. I want you to focus on this. Close your eyes. Feel it—hear it, whatever. Go beyond the visible and into the integral."

"What's integral?"

"Essential. You know that word right?"

"I think so." She looked down at the crystals. "They're humming."

"Wonderful." Ruen squinted at two tiny wires she was examining. "Are they humming anything specific?"

"It's not the Republic Anthem."

"You get a point for sarcasm. Now. Do they—"

"This one wants to attack. And this one wants to defend."

That gave Ruen pause. She set her wires down and peered at Asha with the same scrutiny. _That's interesting._ "They're incomplete. You should feel…the rough edges. Physically, that needs to be rebuilt so the energy is channeled properly. Do you get that…impression?"

"Not really."

"Fine! Try this then." Ruen, frustrated by what she could not understand, held the half of a hilt that she had out to Asha. "Here's the power pack, sorta like for a blaster. Put the crystal half—"

"Which one?"

"Ah…the less aggressive one. We don't want it blowing up on us. Put it here, over the…this yellow part."

Asha set the asymmetrical shard into the ragged-edged slot. It did not fit perfectly, but did touch the required points. Ruen turned and placed the second half of the lightsaber's battered shell over the crystal and power circuits, then sealed it with a few loops of electrical tape, which she had found on someone's porch. She handed the completed, shortened hilt to Asha. "Turn it on."

The musician examined the hilt and slid the activation button up. A half-length lightsaber blade appeared, humming faintly. In color it was so dark an orange as to be almost red. "Why did it change color?"

Ruen didn't really know the answer. So she made something up. "The lightsaber reflects the nature of its owner. You're darker than Nlak. And shorter."

Asha seemed to accept that logic. "But he was blue."

"It's not about your skin! Mace Windu had this ridiculous purple lightsaber…but you wouldn't know him."

"Is he human? I suppose purple would be pretty funny for a human."

Ruen hunched over the bar, looking at the second half of the lightsaber and trying to form a coherent response to her unofficial apprentice's strange comment. The second half would be harder, as it did not have its own power source or activation bar. She could scrounge those things, though. The hard task would be teaching Asha some swordplay.

---)----------

They stood in the middle of the room, legendary weapons in their hands. Ruen did not entirely know how to teach. She wished for the practice lightsabers they had used in the temple, which would administer a nasty burn to their victim, but not maim them. She said, "Let's see what you can do with those."

She activated her green blade and took a swing at Asha.

"Ah!!" Asha ducked and practically ran away.

"Ah…" Ruen stood there. "Yeah. I…" _should probably teach her how to block. _

_But I barely remember when we began this stuff. _

_Blocks._

"Come here," she said. "I'll teach you to defend yourself. Lines of defense. One, two, three," She moved her lightsaber through the different positions. "Do that with the… you know, the one that wants to defend."

Asha copied her hesitantly. "What do I do with this one?" She waved the lightsaber in her back hand.

"Keep it up. Ready to attack. Ok?"

Asha nodded.

Ruen carefully brought her lightsaber toward Asha's and the musician touched her own against it in stiff versions of the eight blocks. "Ok…"

They worked for a time on this. And Ruen realized that Asha was not going to make progress quickly. No student was unable to be taught. But Asha was unable to be taught by impatient Ruen at this moment. They repeated the sequence of blocks, but Asha's control of the blade was nonexistent.

"Ow!" Asha staggered backward as her arm came into contact with Ruen's blade – not enough to cut, but enough to leave a serious burn.

"You were supposed to block! It's a simple four-parry!"

"You didn't tell me that!"

Ruen growled and switched off her blade. She looked at Asha's arm, which was beginning to redden. "You'll need a bacta patch for that. Which means I have to go out and get it…" She muttered.

"What's bacta? Sound's painful." She rubbed her arm and grimaced. "Can't you just use the Force to fix this?"

"You don't know what bacta is? Blue gooey stuff, heals? Whatever. I don't know how to heal with the Force," she replied curtly. "I'll go out." She picked up a jacket from beside the door and looked for a second to see whether Asha was going to make any comments. It angered her that her student was doing so poorly, but she was not going to leave the kid with a burnt arm. That wouldn't be efficient. She thought about where she could get cheap bacta. It would be very hard to steal the stuff, as it would be kept at pharmacies or hospitals, or in people's cabinets. Despite the fact that she was getting good at it, Ruen wasn't keen on breaking into someone's apartment during the day.

Asha stared at Ruen's back as the older girl walked away, still wondering idly if bacta was going to be painful. Of course, even if it was, it probably wouldn't hurt any more than her arm already did. Now that the shock was wearing away, she could feel the steady throbbing as blood rushed to the area.

Out of instinct, she drew the Force into her body and tried to focus it along the painful track that the blade had left. It came surprisingly easy – well, maybe not all that surprising. She realized now that on the many nights when she'd played until her fingers were raw and bleeding that she must have drawn on the Force to block the pain then too, even if she hadn't known it by that name.

She cast another look around the abandoned room, looking for a corner or a shadow she could tuck herself into. She had no idea how long it would take to find bacta, or when Ruen would be coming back. Quietly, she drew her violin out of its case and – very gently, so she didn't further injure her arm – set it under her chin and put the bow to the strings. One long note, then a second… it was slightly out of tune, and she spent a few moments adjusting the pegs before returning to the music.

Then she slipped into trance, drawing the now-familiar power around her like a blanket as she played.

---)----------

There was no warning. All of a sudden, there was another presence playing on the edges of her consciousness. It probed cautiously, as though it were confused by her. She sent out a tentative reply through the Force, and felt him – it was definitely a male presence – withdraw quickly, before she could see further into his mind.

The last note faded into silence; she opened her eyes, and found herself staring at the boots of a tall, thin, red-and-black alien. Very slowly, her gaze traveled upward until she met his. She tried a small smile.

He glowered.

It was at this point that Ruen returned. Asha heard the thud of a bag of groceries hitting the floor, and jerked her gaze away from the intruder's to look around his legs at the doorway. Ruen was staring, shock written all over her face, but also a definite excitement and…the music that Asha associated with her mentor had spiked, suddenly careening into a major key and an incredibly fast pace. _Wasn't expecting that_, Asha thought.

The intruder turned to look at Ruen. His melody was a quiet one, a menace in the low winds. "You are not wanted here. The rule of two, one Sith master and one apprentice, must be upheld."

"Ah," Ruen felt for the bag she had dropped, without lowering her gaze. Asha set down her violin in a relatively safe corner and inched toward her lightsabers, which lay discarded on the bar. The intruder sounded…restrained, like a dog on a leash; eager to fight in ways unlike either the street fights of her youth or the formal lethality of lightsaber combat. His Force presence repelled and frightened her, as he wished it to.

_Oh._This _is the dark side._

Ruen fought for words for a moment, then picked up the bag and carried it toward the countertop as if she were alone. "Ah, the rule of two means nothing to me. I _am _powerful. Enough to seize the Sith by their throats if I wished. Your master can't see that. But…"

"Do not doubt the wisdom of my master!" He said, still quietly. Asha's hands found the lightsaber hilts and she raised them in the guard she had been taught. Even if the only weapons she had were those that frustrated her and matched the blisters on her hands, she would fight—she activated the shoto blades. The Sith waved one hand toward her. She crashed into the side of the counter, undamaged but for surface pain on her back—and feeling very out of her league.

Ruen had abandoned her shopping bag and approached the Sith with her lightsaber in hand. "Don't push my apprentice! What's your name?"

He raised his head a bit but did not appear to want to answer at first; Asha stood up and moved toward Ruen. The Sith said, "I am Darth Maul."

"And your master?" asked Ruen eagerly.

"He is too busy for you," said Darth Maul. He glared at her—passively, if a glare could be described as such, but it seemed that his eyes always held that intensity-- and she looked back, her conflicting emotions cascading one after another, tinkling like glass shattered on the ground. _Fear _stood out, so powerfully that even Asha's newborn senses could easily perceive it. Ruen had faced this man before.

"But he sent you to kill me."

"He did not. I found you by accident. The Sith reside in this place. You are at their doorstep."

She did not reply, although she tried.

He moved toward the door. His gloved hand strayed to the silver lightsaber hilt at his side. "My master has given me no reason to kill you," he said roughly. "I trust that you won't either."

After the trapdoor shut behind him Ruen surged toward the door; lightsaberless she nevertheless seemed to attack. "We'll stay!" She shouted, voice cracking. "Vape the Sith Master, if all he sends us is…" But the rant died down into a murmur, a suggestion of fear, when she got to the part about the shadowy master. She sat down on a nearby stool and the music inside her trembled and crescendoed, angry and confused. Asha approached and put a hand on Ruen's shoulder.

"Bacta?" She asked, once she had Ruen's attention.

Ruen got up and pulled a small box out of the bag. She unwrapped it to reveal a cloth with blue gel attached to it. "Wrap this around your arm." She handed it to Asha.

Asha eyed the blue goo suspiciously.


End file.
